Game on following the lights off at Super Bowl 47

An unexpected stadium power outage pauses the big game for 35 minutes.

Super Bowl XLVII (47) wasn't a very memorable game as the third quarter began, but this matchup was about to standout for another reason: a power outage lasting longer than halftime itself.

The Superdome in New Orleans lost power at the 13:22 mark in the third quarter, during the first offensive series of the second half. The outage caused a delay of nearly 35 minutes according to CBS announcer Jim Nantz. When combined with halftime and the delayed San Francisco 49ers offensive possession, it kept the Baltimore Ravens offense off the field for a total of 84 minutes.

At the time of this post, a clear explanation of the situation from the NFL is unavailable. CBS's Steve Tasker reported (and tweeted) the issue was a simple mistake, "Outside power feed coming into the stadium that suddenly went dead..." ABC News spoke with law enforcement officials and was told "there is no obvious sign of anything other than a building issue at this time."

Lighting at the stadium seemed to recover after about 20 minutes (see the time elapsed between the tweet timestamps on these twoupdates from Grantland's Rembert Browne), but there were other issues to tackle before the game could resume. For instance, power was lost for the production crews and broadcast booth. And CBS's Tracy Wolfson reported that while the Ravens' sideline quickly regained power, the 49ers sideline remained without electricity right up until the end of the 35-minute delay. Additionally, before play could resume, each team was given a warm-up period to limber up following the unexpected break.

The NFL made video of the incident available on its website and issued a brief statement: "Stadium authorities are investigating the cause of the power outage. We will have more information as it becomes available." NFL Network's Ian Rapoport also tweeted out a rather obvious statement from Superdome spokesman Eric Eagan on the incident. "Power has been restored. We sincerely apologize for the incident.”

Ars will continue to monitor the situation (and watch the game—note the San Francisco nature of this byline). We'll update this post as more information becomes available. Baltimore led the game 28 to 6 at the time of the delay, but San Francisco has scored the next 17 to bring the score to 28-23 (3:10 remaining in the third quarter).

Update: If ESPN is correct, fans can make all the surge protector jokes they'd like. The Worldwide Leader in Sports spoke to police officials on site and reported the blackout occurred because too much electricity was being pumped into the Superdome.

I kind of wish I kept watching the game to see it happen. I stopped watching the game because I was bored and had no vested feelings about either teams and with the first have being so one sided it was not as fun to watch. They sure knew how to spice up the second half.

Isn't the whole game of american football designed to provide ads breaks ? that's just one more !

The advertisements are certainly more interesting than the 13 minutes of actual gameplay

A few years ago, I would have agreed with you. The ads have been getting worse and worse as the years go on. And, on top of that, it wasn't a bunch of new ads - it was 10 different people stating over and over again that the power went out and they didn't know why.

The power going out is one thing, but I don't think people realize how long it takes those stadium lights to warm back up and pop on - it's not like the light switch at home. The bulk of the time spent on the 'outage' was waiting for them to fire up again. I'm fairly certain they were more concerned with devoting what power they had back to getting the lights turned on again instead of piping it to the press booths where it'd get wasted on newscasters talking about how the lights went off and they don't know why.

I have to say, watching it on the BBC (no adverts) was interesting. Lots of the 'Superbowl Memories' clips with bad sound editing. Presumably they were the 'backup' clips without the voiceover added and with the original recorded sound EQd to be extra tinny in comparison to the voiceover.

The BBC media section went out as well so we had nothing until the CBS pitch-side commentator got going. Made for an awkward ten minutes of badly-edited footage that was probably never meant to be aired.

I'm glad that it was nothing more than a surge problem. I got very worried when it started.

I'm not an American Football fan but it was on and I'm an insomniac and I should say that I quite enjoyed the game.

I kind of wish I kept watching the game to see it happen. I stopped watching the game because I was bored and had no vested feelings about either teams and with the first have being so one sided it was not as fun to watch. They sure knew how to spice up the second half.

Woah. Got a browser warning when I tried loading this page. Good thing I'm on a chromebook:

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I don't think people realize how long it takes those stadium lights to warm back up and pop on - it's not like the light switch at home.

It should be. And for $10,000 you can get to flick the switch on and off as fast as your fingers can move and say, "Hey everybody, Disco!"

They do come on almost instantly when first turned on, then warm up over a few minutes, just like some CFLs. The issue is that they can not be turned on when hot, and it takes a few minutes to cool off enough so they can restrike.

"Update: If ESPN is correct, fans can make all the surge protector jokes they'd like. The Worldwide Leader in Sports spoke to police officials on site and reported the blackout occurred because too much electricity was being pumped into the Superdome."

To be pedantic, this explanation isprobably incorrect. If one pumps too much electricity into the Superdome, the line voltage would have increased.

What I think they were trying to tell and what actually happened is that some circuits of the Superdome were overburdened, too many lamps, microwaves, too much load for the circuit breakers to handle, and so the circuit breakers did what they were supposed to do, cut the power.

"Update: If ESPN is correct, fans can make all the surge protector jokes they'd like. The Worldwide Leader in Sports spoke to police officials on site and reported the blackout occurred because too much electricity was being pumped into the Superdome."

To be pedantic, this explanation isprobably incorrect. If one pumps too much electricity into the Superdome, the line voltage would have increased.

What I think they were trying to tell and what actually happened is that some circuits of the Superdome were overburdened, too many lamps, microwaves, too much load for the circuit breakers to handle, and so the circuit breakers did what they were supposed to do, cut the power.

To be fair, it says "If ESPN is correct" which rarely if ever actually happens.

"Update: If ESPN is correct, fans can make all the surge protector jokes they'd like. The Worldwide Leader in Sports spoke to police officials on site and reported the blackout occurred because too much electricity was being pumped into the Superdome."

To be pedantic, this explanation isprobably incorrect. If one pumps too much electricity into the Superdome, the line voltage would have increased.

What I think they were trying to tell and what actually happened is that some circuits of the Superdome were overburdened, too many lamps, microwaves, too much load for the circuit breakers to handle, and so the circuit breakers did what they were supposed to do, cut the power.

My (semi-serious) theory is that a drunk guy broke a lightbulb which caused a short.

"Update: If ESPN is correct, fans can make all the surge protector jokes they'd like. The Worldwide Leader in Sports spoke to police officials on site and reported the blackout occurred because too much electricity was being pumped into the Superdome."

To be pedantic, this explanation isprobably incorrect. If one pumps too much electricity into the Superdome, the line voltage would have increased.

What I think they were trying to tell and what actually happened is that some circuits of the Superdome were overburdened, too many lamps, microwaves, too much load for the circuit breakers to handle, and so the circuit breakers did what they were supposed to do, cut the power.

To much was pumped in, too much was drawn in. Potato-Pahtahtoe to the target audience and not entirely wrong if you squint at it.

Just a small technicality: if they were drawing too much power, they wouldn't have tripped a surge protector or the circuit breaker in one. Rather, it would've been a rather large switchgear that cut power or something even larger. Just sayin'.

Just a small technicality: if they were drawing too much power, they wouldn't have tripped a surge protector or the circuit breaker in one. Rather, it would've been a rather large switchgear that cut power or something even larger. Just saying'.

Well yeah it would have been some seriously large gear. I believe that it is generally [one-use] fuses, rather than mechanical breakers, at the voltage-amp scale to serve that many lights and assorted outlets for the broadcast gear and such. The switches are moving mechanical, the over-current protection is not.

There is hierarchy in how the power is split and then split again down to the level of a single string of lights or outlets. What went was a main branch but not the single failure point (it is possible that the single point of failure is outside the building, in the utility’s grid, and they are connected to the power grid via multiple main lines coming in, given how large the facility is).

Isn't the whole game of american football designed to provide ads breaks ? that's just one more !

The advertisements are certainly more interesting than the 13 minutes of actual gameplay

A few years ago, I would have agreed with you. The ads have been getting worse and worse as the years go on. And, on top of that, it wasn't a bunch of new ads - it was 10 different people stating over and over again that the power went out and they didn't know why.

Oh I never said the ads were especially interesting only at least slightly better than actually watching American Football (to be fair I still "watch" the super bowl, because it gives me about 4 hours to catch up with people I see rarely).

Anyhow, yes the idea of posting the ads before the actual event seems pretty stupid - no idea why everybody seems to do it these days.. wouldn't you want your ad to be new and interesting to stand out of the crowd and not something that most people have already seen?

I don't think people realize how long it takes those stadium lights to warm back up and pop on

As someone else mentioned, it may be cooling, rather than heating. With projector bulbs, it's extremely important to never strike a bulb when it's hot, because the projector pumps a crapload of power into it when it's first starting up, as the resistance is high when it's cold. If it's already hot, that huge inrush of current can blow the bulb on the spot, and even if it doesn't, the lifespan will be shortened dramatically.

I don't know that the Superbowl floodlights use the same tech, but I suspect they probably do. And I'm not sure how long it takes them to cool off, but that could be part of the reason for the delay.... cooldown time, rather than warmup.

Isn't the whole game of american football designed to provide ads breaks ? that's just one more !

The advertisements are certainly more interesting than the 13 minutes of actual gameplay

That whole "11 minutes of actual gameplay" thing (or 13 minutes as quoted here) is a totally bogus statistic. There are 60 minutes of gameplay in a football game. Some of those minutes are spent in the huddle and in between plays, and they certainly stretch NFL games out to three hours to include halftime and far too many commercials, but nevertheless there are 60 minutes of live action. So please stop it with this falsehood.

That whole "11 minutes of actual gameplay" thing (or 13 minutes as quoted here) is a totally bogus statistic. There are 60 minutes of gameplay in a football game. Some of those minutes are spent in the huddle and in between plays, and they certainly stretch NFL games out to three hours to include halftime and far too many commercials, but nevertheless there are 60 minutes of live action. So please stop it with this falsehood.

Sorry, but I will not consider people standing around doing nothing as "live action".. although I assume if you do, a walk in the park must be extremely thrilling for you. Note that I said "actual gameplay" and not "time while the clock is ticking".

I don't have any problems with the actual game part, it's just that there's not much of it stretched over a way too long time.

Sorry, but I will not consider people standing around doing nothing as "live action".. although I assume if you do, a walk in the park must be extremely thrilling for you. Note that I said "actual gameplay" and not "time while the clock is ticking".

Soccer is just one guy taking a brisk jog around a field, with brief moments of him kicking a ball, then jogging after it. Other people join in the jogging fun, depending on their position and such.

I don't consider people running around a field as "live action", so I'm only going to consider the (very few) seconds per game someone's foot is in contact with the ball as "actual gameplay".

I don't think people realize how long it takes those stadium lights to warm back up and pop on

As someone else mentioned, it may be cooling, rather than heating. With projector bulbs, it's extremely important to never strike a bulb when it's hot, because the projector pumps a crapload of power into it when it's first starting up, as the resistance is high when it's cold. If it's already hot, that huge inrush of current can blow the bulb on the spot, and even if it doesn't, the lifespan will be shortened dramatically.

I don't know that the Superbowl floodlights use the same tech, but I suspect they probably do. And I'm not sure how long it takes them to cool off, but that could be part of the reason for the delay.... cooldown time, rather than warmup.

Unlikely. Don't know exactly what kind of lights he Superdome has, but the cool-down requirement is typically only 5-10 minutes for stadium lights. Probably most of the time was spent on a pre-start-up checklist for the electrical system. You don't just flip the switch on for half a stadium like that. By the time they figured out what breaker to reset (sounds like it was off-site, even) and ran the checklist, they would have been well past any required cool down period.